At some point in my life I had to explain who donald knuth was to a table of not-cs type people:

"he wrote a book about programs, then a program to write books, and then wrote a book about the program, in the program to write books"

tef

Start right before you get eaten by the bear

• Cut the backstory ✂️. When communicating, whether in a Q&A session, a pitch, or a team meeting, get straight to the point. People are most interested in the “juicy part” of the story.
• Focus on the essential information 🎯. Before you start a conversation, ask yourself, “What is the minimum amount of information the other person needs to give me valuable advice?” This will help you to avoid “backstory scope creep” and make your communication more effective.
• Start your story right before you get eaten by the bear 🐻. This is the main takeaway from the article. The author uses the analogy of a camping story to illustrate this point. Instead of starting with the planning and preparation for the trip, you should start right before the most exciting part of the story. This will make your story more engaging and memorable.

In Praise of “Normal” Engineers

• Teams over individuals 🤝: The article argues that the focus should be on building effective teams, rather than searching for superstar “10x engineers.” The success of a project depends on the collaborative effort of the entire team, not the heroic efforts of a single individual.
• Empower “normal” engineers 🚀: A great engineering organization is one that empowers its “normal” engineers to do exceptional work. This is achieved by providing them with the right tools, processes, and a supportive environment.
• Business impact is key 📈: The true measure of an engineer's productivity is not the amount of code they write, but the impact their work has on the business. The focus should be on delivering value to the users and achieving business goals.
• Create a learning environment 🧠: The best engineering organizations are those that foster a culture of learning and growth. They provide opportunities for engineers to develop their skills and “mint” world-class engineers from within.
• Design for humans ❤️: Software systems should be designed with the understanding that they will be used and maintained by “normal” people with their own cognitive biases and limitations. This means creating systems that are easy to understand, use, and debug.
• Fast feedback loops 🔄: Shortening the time between writing code and deploying it to production is crucial. This allows for faster iteration, learning, and reduces the cognitive load on engineers.

On Being Liked or Mistaking Harmony for Health

• Don't mistake harmony for health 😊. A leader's primary goal isn't to be liked, but to be effective. Prioritizing “good vibes” over pushing your team to grow leads to stagnation and ultimately fails both the team and the business.
• Leadership is active, not passive 💪. True leadership involves creating structure, setting clear standards, and ensuring accountability. Simply “staying out of the way” is an abdication of responsibility, not empowerment. If the team would do the exact same work without you, you're not leading.
• Accountability isn't a bad word 🎯. Teams accustomed to passive, “cheerleader” managers often react negatively when a new leader introduces basic expectations and planning. This “whiplash” happens because they've never been held to a standard of performance, only participation.
• Autonomy needs guardrails 🛤️. Giving a team autonomy without clear goals, direction, and a connection to business impact is not empowering—it's just “drift.” It leads to disconnected teams building beautiful but ultimately irrelevant things.
• Connect tech to business outcomes 💼. For tech leaders, the job eventually stops being just about the tech. It becomes about providing business context and ensuring that technical work drives meaningful results. A leader who can't connect their team's work to the company's goals is just playing in a sandbox.

4 ways to manage the lows of leadership

• Focus on what you can control and influence 🧘. This stoic-inspired principle advises leaders to concentrate on their own actions and words rather than worrying about the unpredictable reactions of others. For example, when delivering difficult feedback, you can't control how the other person will feel, but you can choose a time and place that makes them more receptive.
• Talk it out 🗣️. Voicing your fears and anxieties to a trusted peer, mentor, or coach can help you gain perspective. Often, saying things out loud reveals that your worst-case scenarios are unlikely to happen. Rehearsing tough conversations can also help you feel more prepared and confident.
• Hope for the best, plan for the worst 📝. This classic advice encourages proactive planning. Acknowledge that things won't always go according to plan, and anticipate potential obstacles. By having contingency plans in place, you can navigate unexpected challenges more effectively and with less stress.
• Embrace the rollercoaster 🎢. The article concludes by reminding leaders that highs and lows are an inherent part of the journey. The goal isn't to avoid the dips, but to develop the skills and strategies to manage them effectively. By doing so, you can lead with greater confidence and resilience.

Your Brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of Cognitive Debt

This study investigated the cognitive effects of using a Large Language Model (LLM) like ChatGPT for essay writing compared to using a search engine or relying solely on one's own knowledge ("Brain-only”). Researchers measured participants' brain activity with EEG, analyzed the written essays with NLP, and conducted interviews to gauge memory and ownership.

Here are the key findings:

• Reduced Brain Activity 🧠: Participants using an LLM showed the weakest neural connectivity, suggesting less cognitive effort and engagement. Brain connectivity systematically decreased with the amount of external help available: the Brain-only group had the strongest brain activity, followed by the Search Engine group, and then the LLM group.
• Impaired Memory Recall 📝: The LLM group performed significantly worse when asked to quote from the essays they had just written. In the first session, 83.3% of the LLM group could not provide a correct quote from their essay, compared to only 11.1% in the other two groups. None of the LLM participants produced a perfectly correct quote.
• Diminished Sense of Ownership 🙋: Participants in the LLM group reported the lowest feeling of ownership over their essays. In contrast, the Brain-only group claimed full ownership almost unanimously.
• Homogenized Writing ↔️: Essays produced by the LLM group were statistically very similar to one another, showing a consistent homogeneity in topics, n-grams, and named entities. The essays written by the Brain-only group, however, were much more distinct from one another.
• Accumulation of Cognitive Debt 📉: The study concludes that relying on LLMs for writing tasks can lead to an “accumulation of cognitive debt.” This is a condition where deferring mental effort in the short-term results in long-term costs, such as a likely decrease in critical thinking and learning skills. Over the course of the study, the LLM group performed worse than the Brain-only group on neural, linguistic, and scoring levels.

That’s all for this week’s edition

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